Lee Big Stopper Filter

First photographs with the Lee Big Stopper neutral density filter which gives an attenuation of 10 stops allowing the use of very long exposures in bright daylight.

From some very basic observations the Lee big stopper filter produces a cool blue colour cast to the final image which can be easily corrected during processing and the Lee big stopper filter I have is about an 11 stop filter rather than a 10 stop as advertised but I love it ! If you would like to do your own comparison work I have uploaded a zip file containing raw CR2 files taken on a Canon 5D MkII showing the same subject with and without the filter.

180 second exposure f16 iso 100

120 second exposure f16 iso 100

If the Lee Big Stopper filter is used to increase the exposure during day light timelapse photography it removes a lot of the moving objects. This bay was full of yachts, power boats and jet skis, the 15 second exposures has removed them all.

You can reset the white balance if you are shooting in Raw (which I would strongly recommend anyway) during the conversion to Tiff. In photoshop you can use the droplet tool to see what the RGB levels are on a neutral area and then adjust the individual levels to balance the values out.